Good evening, WordPress is acting up once again, so this is going to be a quick thread.
Another report is discussed at this first link…yes, it deals with guns.
Seven of the Most Striking Ways States Have Loosened Gun Laws – ProPublica
Friday’s deadly rampage at a Connecticut elementary school marked the 13th mass shooting in the United States this year. Among the 11 deadliest shootings in U.S. history, more than half took place in the last five years. During the same period, states have often relaxed their gun laws, making it easier for individuals to obtain guns, extending the places where concealed guns are permitted, or giving gun owners more robust protections.
Nothing new there, just more confirmations of facts we already know.
Then there is this, I just can’t believe the shit that comes out of tea party member’s mouths.
Tea Party member Timothy Birdnow lamented yesterday that had George Zimmerman “been at the front door” of Sandy Hook Elementary School, “those children would still be alive.” According to Birdnow, Zimmerman was the perfect “neighborhood watch,” and we should “support” activities like his.
In a piece posted to the Tea Party Nation website, Birdnow blames the Newtown, Connecticut shooting on everything from teacher’s unions to lack of spanking in schools. Changing our gun laws, Birdnow believes, is not the answer.
The piece, entitled, “Barbarians at the Gates of Sandy Hook,” prescribes a number of solutions to our nation’s violence problem, including homeschooling children and a “more frank discussion of race and culture.” According to Birdnow, “for far too long we have tiptoed around these issues, fearful of being branded a racist.” He believes, “If black thugs kidnap and rape a woman,” we should “ask if there is something in the black culture that fostered that.”
Unremarkable, what can you say to that?
I want to end with this article from New York Times, Ecocatwoman posted this link early this morning, but it is too important…and it should be here on the front page.
In Newtown, Conn., a Stiff Resistance to Gun Restrictions – NYTimes.com
People in the rural, hilly areas around Newtown, Conn., are used to gunfire. In one woodsy stretch, southeast of downtown, the Pequot Fish and Game Club and the Fairfield County Fish and Game Protective Association, where members can fish in ponds and hunt pheasant, lie within a mile of each other, and people who live nearby generally call them good neighbors.
But in the last couple of years, residents began noticing loud, repeated gunfire, and even explosions, coming from new places. Near a trailer park. By a boat launch. Next to well-appointed houses. At 2:20 p.m. on one Wednesday last spring, multiple shots were reported in a wooded area on Cold Spring Road near South Main Street, right across the road from an elementary school.
Yet recent efforts by the police chief and other town leaders to gain some control over the shooting and the weaponry turned into a tumultuous civic fight, with traditional hunters and discreet gun owners opposed by assault weapon enthusiasts, and a modest tolerance for bearing arms competing with the staunch views of a gun industry trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which has made Newtown its home.
Please…please just read this one article if you do nothing else tonight!
This is an open thread.
